The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [92]
The word sad stood out from all the others. “Come on up,” David said as he pressed the door release. His voice held surprisingly little enthusiasm.
Thirty seconds later the elevator clattered into use. Shit, David thought, it was her. He stood in the open doorway and listened to the groaning cables. Turning his nightmare over to Christine Beall was not the way he had wanted it to end, no matter what her actions had put him through. He was halfway to the elevator when the car light appeared in the diamond-shaped window of the outside door. A second later, the car crunched to a halt. The automatic inside gate rattled open.
David stopped several feet away and waited for Ben. Five seconds passed. Then another five. He took a tentative step forward. The door remained closed. Finally he peered through the grimy window. Ben stood to one side, leaning calmly against the wall.
“Hey, what’s going on?” David asked, swinging open the heavy door. The lawyer’s eyes stared at him, moist and vacant. His face was bone white. Suddenly the corners of his mouth crinkled upward in a half-smile.
“Ben, not funny,” David said. “Now cut the crap and come on out of there. I wanna hear.”
Ben’s lips parted as he took a single step forward. Crimson gushed from his mouth and down his chin. David caught him halfway to the floor. The back of Ben’s tan raincoat was an expanding circle of blood. Protruding from the center was the carved white handle of a knife.
Sticky, warm life poured over David’s hands and clothes as he dragged his friend from the elevator.
“Help!” he screamed. “Someone, please help me!”
He pulled the knife free and threw it on the carpet, then rolled Ben’s body face up. The lawyer’s dark eyes stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. David checked for a carotid pulse, but knew that the blood, now oozing from one corner of Ben’s mouth, was the sign of a fatal wound to the heart or a main artery.
“Please help.” David’s plea was a whimper. “Please?”
The stairway door at the far end of the hall burst open. Leonard Vincent stood there, his massive frame darkened by the light behind him. Almost casually, he reached to his waistband and withdrew a revolver. The ugly silhouette of a silencer protruded from one end.
“It’s your turn, Dr. Shelton,” Vincent rasped, certain he was facing the man Dahlia had described. He had followed Christine Beall to a coffee shop and recognized the criminal lawyer with whom she was meeting. Dahlia’s response to his call was immediate: Glass first, then Shelton, and later the girl. Now, thanks to the lawyer, he could handle the first two almost at once.
David stumbled backward and tried to straighten up, but his hand, covered with blood, slid off the wall and he spun to the carpet. Inches away was the knife. He grabbed it by the tip and hurled it at the advancing figure. It fell two yards short. Vincent picked it up and calmly wiped the blade on his pants. He was less than fifty feet away. Between them, Ben’s lifeless body stretched across the corridor. Light from an overhead bulb caught the huge man’s face. He was smiling. His smile broadened as he raised the silenced revolver.
David scrambled backward, his mouth open in a soundless scream. His mind registered a spark from the tip of the silencer at the instant the doorjamb beside his ear exploded.
He dove head first into his apartment, flailing with his feet to close the solid wood door. The latch clicked shut moments before a soft crunch and the instantaneous appearance of two dime-sized holes by the knob.
David looked wildly about, then clawed himself upright. He raced to the living room. The fire escape! Opening the window, he looked down at his stockinged feet. For a moment he thought about the closet and his running shoes. No chance, he decided. With a groan of resignation, he stepped out onto the metal landing. There was a crash from inside the apartment as the front door burst open. An instant later David was racing